(Plume Branche, Mon Charisz, or
Waapashaw) (also known as No-Pa-Wa-Ra, Nampawarah, Wompawara and
Mannschenscaw) (meaning "He who scares all men" or "fury")
oil portrait by Charles Bird King
(1785-1862). Plate 100. McKenney, Thomas L. & Hall,
James. Per History of the Indian Tribes of North America.
Philadelphia: F.W. Greenough, 1838-1844.The original oil portrait
was painted during White Plume's visit to Washington DC ca 1822(The
original portrait was in the Smithsonian Museum when the museum had a fire in 1865
and the original portrait

was destroyed; but there are many copies that were
made)

White Plume's village
was located at the area of present day Grantville, just northeast of North
Topeka, Kansas.

White Plume
(Mon-chonsia) (Kansa [Hutanga]), was a member of a large delegation brought to
Washington, D.C. by Indian Agent Benjamin O'Fallon in
1821-1822. The delegation included prominent chiefs of the
Missouri, Omaha, Oto and Pawnee nations. The purpose of the visit
was to impress the Native American leaders with the power and generosity of
the federal government in order to maintain peace on Western borders which the
government was unable to defend. The portraits painted of this
delegation were the first which Charles Bird King was commissioned to
execute.

“This chief may have been one of the
sixteen Pawnee, Omaha, Kansa, Oto, and Missouri who visited the Great Father
in the winter of 1821–1822,” according to Horan, “toured the city, and
entertained thousands of spectators with a war dance in front of the White
House. In the 1820s the Kansa was a small Siouan tribe living northwest of the
Osage on the Kansas River. . . . In 1822, Benjamin O’Fallon, McKenney’s agent
on the Missouri, estimated that the nation numbered about fifteen hundred men,
women, and children. Three years later O’Fallon accompanied their chiefs to
St. Louis where they signed a treaty with William Clark, relinquishing to the
United States all claims they had to lands in north Kansas and southeast
Nebraska. They retained a large tract of land on the Kansas River. . . .
McKenney recalled Monchonsia as ‘a man respected by his tribe, cautious,
fearless, and brave.’'

White Plume (Wom-pa-wa-ra, "He who scares all men"), a chief of the
Kansas Indians, was born about 1763 and died past 70 years of age. He is
described by Catlin as "a very urbane and hospitable man of good, portly size,
speaking some English, and making himself good company for all persons who
travel through his country and have the good luck to shake his liberal and
hospitable hand." The government built a substantial stone house for White
Plume about 1827 or 1828, but for some reason he refused to abide in it; White
Plume replied when asked "Too many fleas";preferring his
old-style wigwam, which he erected in the door yard of his official palace.
This house stood about 50 yards north of the present Union Pacific depot in
the village of Williamstown, Jefferson county. Father P. J. De Smet, the
Jesuit missionary, in speaking of White Plume, says: "Among the chiefs of this
tribe are found men really distinguished in many respects. The most celebrated
was White Plume." John T. Irving, in his Indian Sketches, thus describes this
dignitary: "He was tall and muscular, though his form through neglect of
exercise was fast verging towards corpulency. He wore a hat after the fashion
of the whites, a calico hunting shirt and rough leggings. Over the whole was
wrapped a heavy blanket. His face was unpainted and although his age was
nearly seventy, his hair was raven black and his eye was as keen as a hawk's.
He was the White Plume, chief of the Konza nation."

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